Whenever I finish a room makeover in our home, I’m usually on a tight publishing schedule because of sponsors or my posting schedule at A Beautiful Mess, so I usually end up photographing the room the next day! (Sometime even the same day!) Inevitably, the space ends up evolving as I settle into it and feel out how to get every detail feelings just right. Of course, the adjustments never really end! I’ll find something at an antique mall of flea market and figure out a way to incorporate it into my home. Or sometimes get the urge to repaint the walls. And so it goes. On and on and on.

To get started on my custom slipcover, I sent Comfort Works images of the sofa I wanted covered. Per their request, I photographed a front view, side view, and angled shots showing the positioning of the arms and the cushions. Then the tailors took a look at the images and drew dimensional lines on them to show me where I needed to take measurements. I wrote the measurements down and sent them back to Comfort Works. Then they cut the fabric and began sewing my cover!

The material I chose was the Luna white linen blend, a fabric that blends natural linen and synthetic fibers for a really durable material. I didn’t have to worry about going with a light color, because if they get very dirty (which they really haven’t— yet!), it’s not difficult to remove them and launder the cushion covers.

Three other changes I made in the study were swapping out the shaggy rug for this hide rug (the shaggy rug is in the girls’ room now), using small glass side tables and table lamps as well as swapping out the desk for this mid century style desk with a smaller footprint and a height that would balance out the wall of books on the opposite wall.

The table lamps you see here are vintage bases I found on eBay paired with custom lamp shade I ordered from Jack of All Shades. It was so satisfying to design some dramatic lamp shades that felt like a fresh take on the quirky tall shade you often see in vintage lamps from the late ’60s.

All of the little changes have made the office feel just perfect in style and function! We’re loving cuddling up here to read together as a family, or sometimes just to steal away from chaos happening elsewhere in our house!

As usual, I’ve rounded up all of the details for you below. Let me know if you have questions!

I’m so excited to be able to pop in with a powder room update for you all! So far I’ve completely rearranged the bathroom with help from J&J Plumbing, settled on tile and fixture choices, and have even begun tiling!

Right now I’m in the process of thinking about decorations as I pause work on the space for a moment. I’m torn between using mostly white decorative elements to add more of textural interest with less dynamic design, or something warmer like what’s pictured above right. What do you think?

Our sink and toilet used to be arranged on the left wall of the powder room, but now the sink will be across from the opening, with the toilet to the left of it.

We built out the wall a bit in order to create a ledge behind the small sink, but it was actually quite handy, because we realized the wall we wanted to move plumbing too wasn’t just drywall. It was masonry, with no space for pipes. I definitely got lucky that my original design solved the issue before it became an issue!

Right now we’ll be working on tiling, and I’ll be adding the wood for the ledge and trim. The walls and ceiling still need painted as well.

I am torn a bit with what to do about grout. You can see a sample piece sitting below the sink in the photo above. The grout color on the left is called Haystack, and would provide a softer backdrop without as much contrast. The dark gray would definitely highlight each individual rock in the tile sheets, but I can’t decide if that would just be too much, considering this tile is going up half the wall and will also be on the floor.

I need to decide what to do about grout in a few days! Send me all of your opinions!

Wow, you guys! July was such a busy month that seemed to both crawl and fly by. We spent so many evenings working on our patio makeover— it was quite exhausting! But I’m happy to report that the project is finished! Check out my patio planning blog post I wrote before setting out on the project. Kind of crazy how the result actually turned out how I planned! Ha! I’ve shared two posts at A Beautiful Mess about the first steps of the project:

The grand reveal is coming soon, along with a post about the slat wood pergola we build. But for now, I’d love to show you some of the process and results right here at my own blog.

This is the lovely view we had from our sunroom door, which has since been transformed to the view below. We spent a grueling weekend stripping the deck, and another entire week putting up the privacy fence. I can’t even believe it was this bad before! Mostly the floor was in super bad shape, but the overall darkness of the space has been dramatically improved.

Here’s another great before and after scene! Above is the original dining area, complete with a grill which we moved out of the way to better position the dining table. We extended the fence posts so the roof in here would be enough height to add the slat wood pergola. What a difference all of that white makes! And now we can enjoy dining al fresco without baking in the hot afternoon sun.

Before we refinished the deck, it was pretty chippy and scratched. Some boards were so chewed up that we had to pull them up and replace them. Phil and I would’ve loved to replace all of the deck boards, but that just wasn’t in the budget. But I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, even though it took soooo much effort to make this old deck shine again!

Here’s how the deck looked before we finished staining, fencing, and adding the slats above the pergola area. It was so exciting to see it com together!

Below you can see what it looks like from the outside. I have since planted sweet autumn clematis up here, which will climb up fishing line that I’m string long the posts of the fence, to keep the clematis off the actual fencing. I hope it fills out how I would like! I’ve been reading a lot about caring and pruning clematis, but any extra advice you have for me would be more than welcome!

We’ve definitely been over-indulging in s’mores since the patio completion, but I know that winter has a way of sneaking up on us here in Ohio, and then we’ll be longing for this warm summer evenings with toasty sugar sandwiches! haha!

I’ve included a list of all of the products I’ve used in this space down below. Article gave us all of the outdoor furniture to be used in the project (except for the umbrella and fire pit). We’re really happy with the quality, and I’d definitely recommend their furniture to anyone who is looking! Feel free to ask me questions and I’ll check back in to answer.